Obama gets windfall from Wall Street firms

Times:

The money raised and spent to elect a new US president and members of Congress is likely to surpass a colossal $5.3 billion next week, shattering previous records, with Wall Street firms dominating the donor list of the most expensive White House race in history.

As Americans fret about the economic crisis and the billions of dollars being poured into the stricken banking sector, a report released yesterday revealed a scale of political fund-raising and expenditure that exceeds even the wildest predictions earlier this year.

The presidential race alone is costing a record $2.4 billion (£1.5 billion).

The report by the Centre for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog, adds up the money raised and spent for the entire presidential and congressional election cycle by the candidates, the parties and outside groups. “In terms of political finance, these numbers are staggering,” said Sheila Krumholz, the centre’s executive director.

Since the presidential campaigning began in January 2007, White House candidates from both parties have raised $1.5 billion, double the amount collected in 2004 and triple the figure in 2000. It is the first time that presidential hopefuls have raised and spent $1 billion, a figure that few considered possible to surpass when the contest began last year.

Despite the financial crisis, Wall Street firms make the lion’s share of donations, along with real estate and insurance companies. Between them they gave $370 million and the top corporate donor was Goldman Sachs. The investment bank’s employees and political action committee have donated $5 million to this year’s campaigns.

The greatest beneficiary has been Barack Obama, who has raised more than $600 million since he announced his candidacy in February 2007, including a record-breaking $150 million last month alone. It has given him a huge advantage over John McCain, allowing the Democrat to saturate the airwaves.

He is outspending his Republican rival on television advertising nationally by a ratio of four to one, and in some battleground states by eight to one. He can even afford to buy an unprecedented 30-minute, primetime speaking slot on three networks on October 29, six days before the election.

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Wall Streets donations to Democrats maybe part of a protection racket that Democrat run or it could be like chickens donating to Col. Sanders. Either way it is not a good deal.

Despite his advantage in money and ad time Obama has not been able to put the campaign away. The race is tightening and he can still lose.